Received this from Vindictive Vince (hell of a guy). I thought I'd post it since Vince doesn't yet have the keys to the city that is catholicguyshow.com
After Lino issued his forgiveness to A Rod and his going on about all the hate mail he would receive I wanted to post something on the blog site but since I am not a contributor it does not allow an original post only comments. So I thought I would write to you and suggest that you address the subject on the blog.
I read in Galatians 2: in this mornings office about how Paul got on Cephas for trying to hide what he was doing when the Jews came around. Paul writes:
“We are Jews by birth, not sinners of Gentile origin. Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified by legal observance but by faith in Jesus Christ, not by observance of the law; for by works of the law no one is justified. But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we are shown to be sinners, does that mean Jesus is encouraging sin? Unthinkable!”
Well in this same light by acting in a Christian manner and offering forgiveness for a fellow sinner does not mean we are encouraging the sin just that we are all weak and need the strength of Christ to live and to be justified. Our offer of forgiveness is only to encourage our moving forward.
true miracle there, isn't it? when we truly forgive someone, we both move forward in our faith...
Absolutely.. but the big thing is that just because we forgive does in no way condone the action or sin of the person we forgive.
Fr Dave was talking about a caller whose sister had been rapped. He was, as everyone can imagine, having difficulty forgiving the attacker. Who wouldn't but when we allow Christ to bear the burden we can begin to have the weight lifted from ourselves and find the strength to carry on. The healing starts with allowing Christ to help. We are not in this alonw.